The prize is a valuable one, for she is a new vessel, built of excellent wood. She has first-rate artillery, and is completely supplied with all munitions and accessories of the first class. As the only damage she suffered was in the sails and the rigging, and some splinters knocked out of the masts by the cannon balls, she can be got ready at once to sail with the Fleet.
This encounter prevented our Fleet carrying out my orders. Had they been executed, we should, by this time, have again been masters of the port of the Island of St Catherine, and should have destroyed the vessels at anchor in that port, which were of small importance. We should also have captured the convoy which was arriving from Montevideo with provisions for the Island; and the want of food which the garrison, all over the Island, was already beginning to feel, would have, undoubtedly, assisted the success of the operation. But the Chief, fearing to meet with the entire Fleet in that port, refusing to believe the information which was given to him, as well as that which he derived from the sailing orders which he seized, shewing that the Fleet had already set sail for Rio Grande, in which latitudes it was sighted by the ships of war, who counted more than forty vessels, as the log-books proved to him; nothing of this sufficing, because that Officer's want of courage can only be appreciated by those who, like myself, have had a large experience of him on occasions of this kind, his fears, I say, had more effect upon him
